The Darkness of Branding
by ProfEvans
Summary: In an AU where Voldemort's final killing curse split and Harry died, Ginny deals with loving the darkness in another influential man, and finds her own darkness. O/S, graphic violence, explicit, blood play, and sadomasochism Rated: MA/Explicit


All canon character, plots, and situations from the Harry Potter series belong to JK Rowling. I am not profiting from this work.

Thank you to Clearwater508 for her time and work on this story.

This was written for Quills & Parchment's Lemonade Smutfest competition and won the "Darkest Dark" award.

Trigger warnings: Graphic depiction of violence, sadomasochism, explicit

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~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~

Ginny gazed through the compartment's window into the corridor as memories from the war drifted back to her. The moment she tumbled into the Room of Requirement and locked eyes on Harry, seeing him whole and alive filled her with relief and hope. Right then, she knew this was the final fight and she had felt sure that they would be victorious and she would have her happily ever after with Harry. But that hope and sureness faded during the battle. It was still there, but the certainty that she would get out alive was absent as she fought with Luna at her back. You-know-who's supporters seemed to send a never-ending stream of curses that Ginny fought off with continuous waves and flicks of her wand until something caught her eye and stopped her heart. Short white blond hair was mixed in the fray, and as Ginny zeroed in on it, she trembled at the thought she may need to fight him, until ice grey eyes met hers. In that moment of chaos and fear, she felt safe and at peace. And then their connection broke as he flicked his wand in her direction and disappeared into the battle. Ginny shook herself free of his mesmerizing effect on her, to find he had taken a moment to save her in the midst of everything.

Sitting in the now quiet compartment of other seventh years and Hermione (who was back to finish school like the know-it-all she was), Ginny's thoughts stayed on the man who had saved her in that moment, and the eyes she had been so absorbed in. When they appeared through the window she was still staring through, it took her a moment to realize he was really on the train with her. He passed by her compartment without a word, and Ginny's mind buzzed. She needed to see him, to talk to him, to do something. Suddenly she didn't know what she needed or wanted, but Ginny knew she couldn't sit still while he was on the train with her.

She excused herself, claiming a need to walk around, and followed the corridor in the direction he had gone. When Voldemort's curse split upon hitting Harry's stunning spell and killed Harry at the end of the battle, Ginny's heart had broken. Actually, she had spent her summer convincing herself her heart was actually still in her chest and functioning; that the gaping, aching hole she felt in her chest would heal. She fought to remind herself that her world would continue without him, and she could still find love. Now, following Draco down the train's corridor, was she chasing her chance at new love?

Ginny's thought brought her back to the year before the war came to Hogwarts, when she and Draco had spent time talking for the first time. It had been insanely bizarre, but when she heard crying from the men's toilet, she knew she had to help. Ginny waited until the boy came out, with red, slightly puffy eyes. They both froze in shock as their eyes met. And in that frozen moment of time, Ginny saw something in his eyes that was familiar and kindred to her.

"Are you alright?" she asked him awkwardly.

"What's it to you, Weasley?" he spat viciously.

"Fine. If you want to cry in the toilet, go for it!" Ginny yelled. "You're too good for my help? Then keep crying!" She was trying to help the bloody prat, and he wanted to be rude? Forget it. Not worth it. She spun on her heel, ears red, and began to storm away.

"Why would I help your pathetic attempt to ruin me?"

Ginny glanced back at Malfoy and saw defeat in his eyes, "Unlike you, Malfoy, I'm not a complete prat," she stated heatedly before walking away and leaving him standing outside the toilet door.

After that encounter, Ginny walked past that men's room more often than before, listening for his sniffles or sobs again. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something she could do to help him, and that she _should_ be helping him. The next time she heard him crying, she didn't wait meekly for him to leave, but she charged into the restroom. As the door echoed closed, he spun to face her with his wand raised. He watched her warily as she walked calmly toward him, before sitting down against a nearby wall. Ginny kept looking at Malfoy, waiting for him to say or do something.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Malfoy asked doubtfully.

"I told you: I'm not a prat and I was trying to help you."

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and looked closer at her.

"Why would you help me though? You're a Weasley."

"Yea, and us Weasleys do the right thing, even if it is for a dodgy twerp like you," Ginny retorted, her temper flaring. She took a breath to attempt to calm herself before continuing, "but I don't know why I'm trying to help you. I just feel like I need to."

"It's not like you can do anything. In fact, you don't have any idea what I'm dealing with," Malfoy retorted, clearly trying to mount his high horse once more.

"Oh sod off with that bullshit Malfoy. I have six brothers, so I may not know exactly, but I probably have some idea."

Ginny locked eyes with him, and forced her determination and empathy to show through her eyes. He needed to open up and talk to her. She needed him to. They stared at each other for at least a minute, and Ginny was about to lose all of her patience and snap when he finally broke.

"My family," he drawled hesitantly, "they have high expectations. They want me to do something bad this year, and I don't think I want to do it. But I have to."

He looked down as he spoke, allowing Ginny to take in his appearance. Malfoy seemed deathly ill: thin with sallow skin and dark circles under his eyes. Whatever his family expected was definitely too much. Ginny stood, unable to let so much space stay between her and this hurting boy. He may be a Malfoy, but surely no one deserved to be in so much pain.

"It's hard to live up to family expectations," she started, but he interrupted.

"It's not just them, it's their friends too. And-" he froze, seeming to realize who he was talking to and what he was about to say, and instinctively reached for his left forearm.

"And it's him, isn't it? Voldemort?" He hissed as she uttered the dark name, but his eyes locked on the floor, as though he was ashamed to admit the truth. But then he nodded. Ginny reached for his arm, and he didn't fight her. She pushed up his sleeve and saw his mark for the first time, and her heart hurt a little, for the loss of innocence they were all going through and for seeing it physically on Malfoy. She brushed her fingers along the tattoo, and tears leaked from Malfoy's eyes as he closed them with relief.

And then the door slammed open and broke their moment. Malfoy yanked his sleeve down and dried his eyes in a flash before he began yelling at her.

"What the hell is your problem, Weaselbee?! This is the men's lavatory, so get out!"

There were many similar encounters between them that year, but he never told her what they wanted him to do, and she never gave up on him becoming a better person. She thought she might be falling in love with him somehow, but it made no sense. Even when she and Harry were together, Ginny would meet Draco and feel her heart pull toward him. Every time he insisted he had to do the mysterious bad thing though, she remembered he was on the wrong side of the war. She remembered that Harry was the love of her life, because he was strong enough to do the right thing every time, because he fought for good and love instead of succumbing to fear. Even so, Draco was so scarred from the Malfoy's idea of love that Ginny felt sure if he was shown true love just once, he'd learn to be a better, stronger man.

The last time they met that year was agonizing for Ginny. Something was different about Draco, and he was more torn than ever.

"They know everything is ready and they expect me to finish the job. But I don't know if I can, and even if I do, it will change everything. Ginny, I don't want to lose you," Draco confessed that night in the Room of Requirement, where they had agreed to meet after being interrupted that first day. She took one of his hands in her small, delicate ones, and waited for him to meet her eyes to reply.

"Draco, you can be a good man, you just need to make the right choice. If you do that, you'll never lose me. Do the right thing and tell me or Dumbledore what they want from you, and don't do it. Fight them, stand for what's right. I know you want to, Draco. You're a good man with a good heart, you're just afraid to show it."

"He'll kill me. And my family. If I don't, they'll find out about you and torture you. I'll lose everything. I can't lose everything. I have to do it."

"But then you'll lose me. I can't be with a man who fights for the wrong side."

"You aren't with me now," he snapped. "You have your precious Potter, the entire bloody school knows about you two, and you're so deliriously happy together."

"You have a stronger hold on my heart though. I just, I can't be with someone on the wrong side. If you choose love, if you choose the light, I'd much prefer you to Harry. But you haven't," tears slipped from her eyes as she argued with him. It didn't matter how many times she tried to remind herself that Harry was the love of her life: Draco held her heart. The two men had so much in common, but had turned out so differently. Harry always had more fire than Draco, who was all ice when he fought, but that was a better fit for Ginny, she thought, since she was all fire and was sure she could melt even Draco's ice. Unfortunately, his father had done a real number on him by placing power over love.

"I can't. I can't lose everything. I need to protect you," tears were building in his eyes as well. Ginny let go of his hand and began to back away.

"If you can't choose good, then I can't do this, Draco. I'm sorry, but I'm done."

Ginny had left the Room of Requirement after that statement, and a week later Dumbledore was dead. After that, she couldn't trust Draco or have anything to do with him again. So when she found a note in her bag the first week of her sixth year, as she had so many times before, she crumpled it and refused to meet him. But it was hard. Ginny was at Hogwarts without any family and without Harry, and she wasn't allowing herself to have anything to do without Draco.

Even so, she couldn't help but watch him, eying his body as he darted through the air on the quidditch pitch and noting he had very few good days. Then she started noticing him resisting the Carrows' form of detention, and interrupting and distracting them when they started disciplining a student unjustly. It wasn't much, but he was trying, he even tried to warn the DA when the Carrows were about to go hunting for them and keep them from identifying the members of the club. She finally deposited a note in his bag the week before Easter holiday started, asking him to meet her.

"You came," Ginny smiled, happier than she expected when he appeared.

"I've missed you," Draco replied softly.

"You're fighting to do the right thing, Draco. I- Thank you for changing for me," Ginny found herself breathless as he stepped closer and closer to her, only stopping when she could feel his breath against her skin. She had more to say, she knew she did, but his eyes found her lips and she couldn't avoid mimicking him.

Suddenly, he was backing her against a wall, kissing her ferociously. He nibbled on her lip and made her feel alive as he pinned her hands against the wall. For a moment, she was completely enthralled with him, and then Harry's face flashed in her mind, reminding her that whatever happened now would have consequences. She needed to be sure. She broke away from Draco's embrace, made a flimsy excuse, and ran. Ginny had never believed herself capable of cowardice until that moment, and it still haunted her as she reached the final compartment of the train: the one that Draco must be occupying.

Merlin, he would never forgive her. He'd take that moment of cowardice as her choosing Harry, and her return now as an admission that he had only ever been second to Harry. Draco had represented everything malignant for a long time within Hogwarts, but the past two years he had changed, and in the battle he'd saved her. Not only that, he stayed out of most of the fighting and fought more often for her side then the other. He'd finally chosen good. Whatever he thought of her, Ginny had to see him. She slid the door open and slipped inside, locking the door behind her before he could say a word.

Ginny turned to face Draco, and icy grey locked on fiery copper as their eyes met. Time stood still. She remembered his hands holding her wrists and his teeth grazing her lips, and her inner core warmed. She'd been waiting months for this chance to rectify her cowardice, and she couldn't risk words stopping her. She silently charmed herself for protection and hid their compartment from prying eyes and ears before she tossed her wand to the seat across from Draco.

Ginny gnawed gently at the corner of her mouth and reached her trembling hands to the top button of her blouse, her eyes still locked on Draco's. She popped the button out of place, and saw his chiseled jaw tighten. Her fingers continued clumsily down her blouse, and his eyes finally left hers to watch them. His hands gripped his thighs tightly as though he fought to control them. When her shirt was completely open, revealing her lacy black bra, Ginny finally left the door to approach Draco. She swung herself astride his lap with a flip of her hair, her head cocked like a doubtful puppy and her eyes looking through her lashes to meet his. She took his hands and placed them on her rear before finally speaking.

"Draco Malfoy," she said evenly in a near whisper, "I love you, and I want to fuck you right here, right now." She finally identified why she had to move after seeing him: to tell him this. He swallowed hesitantly, as though he was trying to match her slow, even tempo, before responding.

"It's about God-damned time," Draco growled as he dug into her cheeks with his fingers. Ginny felt him bulge in his pants as their lips locked and her fingers started on his buttons. Her fingers were clumsier than before as she undid his shirt while her tongue danced with his. She ground her hips against his bulge, finally getting to kiss him the way she'd wanted to for over a year. He groaned against her mouth as she humped him through their clothes, and she felt her control slip. Apparently his did too, because he suddenly ripped his shirt off, sending buttons flying before he tore her shirt off and threw her to her back on the bench seat.

Ginny felt fear for the first time since entering the compartment as his hands fiddled with the clasp of her bra. Draco threw it across the small room and held her wrist down against the seat with one hand while the other found her breast. His teeth grazed her collar bone before she realized the cause of her fear: Ginny, the fierce, bold, warrior woman that she was, was at Draco's mercy, and it was seductive as all fucking hell. He was in control, and he was staking his claim on her as he bit into her shoulder, pulling a moan from Ginny. He lowered his mouth to her heaving bosom and released her hand, which feathered itself through his silky hair, to begin fiddling with her belt and pants button. Draco danced his tongue around her nipple, making her bite her lip with pleasure. He was destroying her in the most wonderful way.

Draco slid down her body, kissing each centimeter of her torso as he yanked her bottoms off, leaving her naked on the seat. Ginny's breathing shallowed as warm butterflies darted around before attempting to rest in the pit of her stomach. One hand gripped her firm ass roughly as the other found its way to her slick folds. Her grip on his light hair tightened desperately as he licked her sensitive nub, exerting a soft pressure that became greater and greater as he added kisses and suction.

"Merlin, Draco!" Ginny shrieked as she came closer and closer to a peak. His touch left a fire on her skin where ever it wandered, and her hips lifted fiercely as she craved a deeper burn. His fingers slipped inside her, first two playing lightly before three began hammering at her delicate pussy. Ginny could hear the squelch of her wetness as his hand pounded her, and her thighs began shaking with the exertion of her muscles contracting. She was sure Draco could feel her walls closing on his hands as he continued mouthing at her clit and she cried out his name, shuddering to a climax. Ginny's second hand ripped at the cushion as he refused to stop or even slow for her orgasm, making the glorious pain pleasure that left her mind empty of coherent thoughts even more tremendous.

"Fuck! Oh fuck, Draco! Yes! Yes!" Ginny screamed savagely as her frenzy reached a new peak, to which Draco finally began to offer her relief, slowing his touch and relaxing his tongue before lifting his head from her lap to meet her eyes. He licked his lips in a way that made her quiver before he spoke.

"Sorry you waited so long, aren't you?" he taunted, coming to his feet while she lay there. Ginny moaned an affirmation as she took in Draco's chiseled body, his muscles still taught and gleaming with sweat. Her eyes traced the lines of his torso until they reached his pants, where his hands waited restlessly. She glanced to his face and witnessed an evil grin before he stripped himself. Her eyes dropped immediately to his hardened length and tried to disguise her shock at its size; this was going to be more fun than she'd ever imagined.

After a moment, it became clear Draco wasn't planning on joining her back on the seat, so Ginny rose to meet him, crashing into him in her excitement. As she kissed him enthusiastically, newly aroused by the feel of him against her pelvis, she seemed to knock him back into the window, his bum pressed against the cool glass. He relaxed into her kiss for a moment, allowing her to surround his firm lips with her own, before he retook control and gripped her wrist tightly, throwing her against the window with a swift turn. She gasped into his mouth as her eyes burst open in shock, her head sore from its impact and her wrist bruising. Draco nipped at her lip sharply before pulling away from her slightly. Looking into her eyes hungrily, he growled throatily, "You're mine now."

Ginny had never believed being claimed by a man could be so enticing. She responded to the heat in her gut and his bestial demand by wrapping a leg around his hip to hold him close to her body. He smirked before nipping along her collarbone, his free hand drifting across her chest. He ran his thumb across her nipple until he elicited another gasp from her, when he hurled her to the floor behind him. Even as Ginny was sure she was bruising, she was surprisingly desperate for more. She was terrified of Draco's physical prowess, but even more was she frightened of him stopping. She needed this rush of pain and pleasure and adrenaline and she would do anything to keep it from ending. Ginny rose to her knees as he approached her and slid her hands up his inner thighs before taking his balls in her hand, beginning to massage them gently. She felt Draco's long fingers thread through her hair as she began kissing his shaft.

Suddenly, his touch became a tight grip on her hair that he used to yank her to her feet. "Not yet," he rumbled gruffly, before heaving her against the sliding door with such force that the glass shattered, showering them and the floor. Ginny's fall continued through the now broken door, her hair pulling Draco on top of her. Stars danced in her vision as she felt sharp roots of pain dig into and radiate throughout her back and legs, forming a base to the blossoming red flowers below her. As the carnations of her blood grew, she found her need for Draco grow more and more feral. Within a moment her hands were on the nape of his neck while her leg wrapped around his, pulling his entire body impossibly closer than gravity had managed. She was devouring him before he even fully realized they had fallen. Ginny needed him. She needed him to be within her. She needed him to know what he meant to her, how far she'd go to protect him. She needed him to know that she loved him. She needed him to know that he was right: she was his.

Draco responded in kind, clearly spurred by the urgency in her kiss, and enveloped her soft skin with impatient hands. Her wild need for his touch and kiss didn't allow for him to pull away as he found his fingers plunged into a thick, sticky liquid. Instead, while one hand gouged into her back, he pulled the other to his eye level to find his fingers entombed in a deep, dark ruby fluid. And in an instant he was gone, leaving Ginny cold and alone on the floor.

To her relief, he was back in a moment. She began to reach for him when he waved his wand over her and she found her hands bound above her head. Her breath shallowed as her heart beat faster than she'd known to be possible as Draco lowered himself to his knees slowly, clearly enjoying the torture she was enduring by waiting. He twirled his wand and conjured a small silver dagger, before setting it to his side. The dagger undulated like a snake for less than a half meter, where it came to a sharpened point, and Ginny's breath became even more erratic as she eyed the weapon greedily.

"If you like pain," he enticed lustfully, "you should have just said so." With those words, he leaned over her upper body to grip her left arm firmly with his own, resting his lascivious cock against her cheek. She squirmed erotically as she felt the dagger's point touch her flesh, and moaned aloud as it bit her forearm. Draco derived a savage pleasure in watching her bleed at the touch of his blade, which only heightened as Ginny wrapped her lips around the crest of his member. The harder he dug his blade into her, the more eagerly she absorbed him. Her tongue twisted and twirled, stroked and fondled him as he thrusted and carved. As Ginny's pain escalated, so did her need to engulf him wholly, so soon his entire, enormous length was within her, a feat that no one had ever before achieved. Draco reveled in the heated moisture of her mouth as he finished his etching. Then he gripped her fresh wounds tightly as he propelled himself into her harder and harder, deeper and deeper, and faster and faster. Tears began to escape Ginny's eyes from the immense magnitude of her pain and pleasure, as she bobbed to his motion, desperate to please him. He crushed her incisions brutally as he finally exploded straight down her throat, inciting a whimper of gratification from her as he pulled himself out.

As Ginny took a moment to catch her breath, Draco returned to his knees, wincing as his weight shifted to rest on the remnants of the door. His hand was coated in blood, which he proceeded to lick off his fingers with his eyes locked on Ginny's. Draco was absorbing _her_. He was making her essence a part of _him_. Her lips parted unconsciously, watching his fingers enviously and licking her lips. Once his fingers were clean of blood, and she found herself absolutely dripping with anticipation, Draco picked up his dagger once more. He cringed as he pricked his finger, conjuring a small bead of blood, before he rested his dagger-wielding hand on her shoulder. Draco shifted his weight, sharpening Ginny's senses as the glass cut into her once more, and held his finger above her lips. She took a moment to relish in her pain before reaching for his offered finger, licking his cut delicately and then inhaling his finger, urging his essence into her system and violently wanting to be one with him. She didn't understand where this urgent need had come from, nor the one for her pain to continue, but she knew she desired it too much to ignore. Apparently Draco did too, because the more she pulled on his finger with her tongue, the more she saw him stiffen anew.

He took away his finger at last, repositioning himself over her so their bodies finally aligned. Without entering her, he began pumping his hips over hers, torturing her through abstinence, making her work to get even an ounce of pleasure when it was so close. Ginny thrashed on the sharpened fragments beneath her, frantic to make them connect.

"Merlin, Malfoy," she griped longingly, "just fuck me already." She dropped her head to the ground hopelessly, giving into the anguish that filled her. While she closed her eyes, he positioned himself carefully, before piercing her tight entrance. Ginny choked out a whimper as her eyes snapped open in shock, pain, and pleasure. Draco had to rock in and out several more times to stretch her fresh opening far enough to please him. Once he was deep enough, he began thrusting harder, renewing their carnal passion. As his hand braced on her still open wounds, their blood mixed, and Ginny was filled with a burst of powerful energy. She felt their spirits intertwine and become one, as she cried out for more. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she lost herself in the pleasured pain, unable to form coherent thoughts or even words past more, harder, and Draco, all of which she screamed to her lover in an intense appeal to climax. He pounded harder and faster against her sodden pussy in pursuit of her orgasm, while her feet traced his legs and her toes curled frantically. He fought off his peak as hard as he could while watching drops of blood form on her bottom lip from her bite's fierce clamp. As her wails finally changed to yes and Draco, and her walls shuddered around his length, he finally allowed her tremors to siphon his own release and let out a grunt of blissful relief.

When Ginny's breathing finally settled to an even pace, he lifted her from the ground in a surge of gallantry she found startling, and carried her to clean floor. Draco set her on her feet before casting _tergeo_ over her body and cleaning the glass off of her. Ginny moved to begin dressing, but he stopped her before she moved very far, saying, "Let me heal you."

He had a warm vulnerability in his eyes that reminded her of their meetings in the Room of Requirement so long ago, and renewed her resolve that Draco was a warm, kind, and good man, who had simply never known a compassionate love. Ginny knew she had to show him what love was meant to be, and in that moment she decided to make it her purpose. He had seen her darkness and embraced it, so now it was her duty to expose him to the brightness within himself. She nodded in agreement and felt a comforting reprieve as her skin knit itself together over the many cuts on her back. When she was whole again, Draco waved his wand once more while kissing her shoulder tenderly, and she felt a rejuvenation as the blood replenishing spell took effect.

Ginny looked down at her left arm to see ruins carved where Draco's dark mark branded him. She had to stare at the slanted X and odd F for a moment to recall her fourth year Runes class: partnership and possession. He had branded her as his own. The thought of it made her heart flutter with excitement, and she looked up to see a firm determination in his face. He had made a resolute decision about something, which he voiced after a second, sending a warm, jubilant blush over her entire body.

"Ginevra Weasley, I've claimed and marked you as my own. You're mine now."


End file.
